“A spy behind enemy lines”
… is how President Obama described himself during his brief stint in private
business in “Dreams of my Father”. President Obama is using stealth to control
what children learn and to centralize that control in Washington, D.C. The
Trojan Horse is Common Core.
This document deals with the myths of Common Core that are being used to push
national standards past state gate-keepers.
As we enter the 2012 election season, we should keep in mind the warning of syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer, who wrote on December 2, 2011: “If Obama wins, he will take the country to a place from which it will not be able to return (which is precisely his own objective for a second term).” But we can’t wait for the election to stop Obama from taking education decisions away from states in violation of the Tenth Amendment.
To further assist conservatives to understand how classrooms are currently being used as laboratories of propaganda to teach our children to hate capitalism and to undermine American Exceptionalism, we suggest reading (1) the book referenced above, and (2) the AFRW pamphlet on Common Core. The Alabama Federation of Republican Women invite concerned citizens to get involved to stop this federal takeover of education to protect our children and to defend states rights under the Tenth Amendment.
For Further information, contact Elois Zeanah, President, Alabama Federation of Republican Women at
Myth 1: Common Core standards and their tests are voluntary. States are free to adopt them, and states are free to abandon them and use their own.
Truth: Common Core standards were developed through a Gates Foundation-funded effort channeled through the NGA and the CCSSO, and two consortia named SBAC and PARCC were funded directly by the federal government to develop the assessments. States were incentivized to adopt them by the U.S. Department of Education through its various grant and waiver programs, and they are at the core of its re-authorization plan for the NCLB. Once adopted, the federal government puts up high barriers against withdrawal.
Evidence:
· To receive the NCLB “flexibility” waiver from the 100% proficiency requirements, states must
o Demonstrate that it has college-and-career-ready expectations for all students in the State by adopting college-and-career-ready standards in at least reading/language arts and mathematics.
· Common Core standards are acceptable by default, as if they were “college-ready.” If a state chooses, however, to withdraw and use its own standards and assessment, it now must prove to the federal government that its own tests are truly college-ready by having
o Standards that are approved by a State network of institutions of higher education, which must certify that students who meet the standards will not need remedial course work at the post-secondary level.
· This State network of institutions of higher education (IHE) is not made of just of non-selective community colleges as for Common Core. To withdraw, this network is now made of
o A system of four-year public IHEs that, collectively enroll at least 50 percent of the students in the State who attend the State’s four-year public IHEs.
§ Sources for 3 bullets above: ESEA Flexibility, U.S. Department of Education, September 23, 2011. http://www.ed.gov/esea/flexiblity
· Similar language is in the Obama administration’s language for the reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act. If a state uses Common Core, the road is smooth. CC is assumed to be good enough, even as we have shown that it is good enough only for non-selective community colleges. If, on the other hand, a state chooses not to join Common Core, the barrier is set much higher – only four-year universities qualify.
o States may either choose to upgrade their existing standards, working with their four-year public university system to certify that mastery of the standards ensures that a student will not need to take remedial coursework upon admission to a postsecondary institution in the system; or work with other states to create state-developed common standards that build toward college-and-career-readiness.
§ Source: A Blueprint for Report, The Reauthorization of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act, U.S. Department of Education. http://www2ed.gov/policy/elsec/leg/blueprint/publicationtoc.html
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Myth 2: Common Core Standards are internationally benchmarked to those of high-achieving nations
Truth: Common Core Standards are mediocre and below those of high-achieving nations.
Evidence:
· Math
o The only mathematician on the Common Core Validation Committee, Professor James Milgram of Stanford University, refused to sign-on to them and wrote:
§ Math is more than one year behind top states at the end of the eighth grade.
§ Math is about two years behind high-achieving countries – particularly East Asia.
· Source: Milgram’s email to Chris Minnich of CCSSO and the Validation Committee on May 30, 2010
o Prof. Jonathan Goodman of the Courant Institute at the NYU, who compared CCS to programs of high achieving nations, wrote:
§ Algebra and geometry have lower standards than other countries.
· Source: J. Goodman, “A comparison of proposed U.S. Common Core math standard to standards of selected Asian countries,” 2010. http://www.educationnews.org/ed_reports/94979.html
· Literacy (Language and Literature)
o An expert on standards and assessments on the Common Core Validation Committee, Prof. Sandra Stotsky of the University of Arkansas, refused to sign-on to CCS and wrote:
§ Requirements for college readiness are far less demanding than some other countries.
· Memorandum to the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, June 6, 2010. http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/docs/0710/item1.html?section=stotsky
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Myth 3: Common Core Standards are Workplace-Aligned
Truth: CCS have not been aligned to workplace requirements.
Evidence:
· The Association for Career and Technical Education in April 2010 stated:
o Most career opportunities will require some form of postsecondary education.
o Students in many cases will not acquire needed academic, technical or employability skills in high school to be career-ready without further education and training.
§ http://www.acteonline.org/uploadedFiles/Publications and Online Media/files/Career Readiness Paper.pdf
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Myth 4: The Common Core (CC) standards are aligned with College Readiness
Truth: The Common Core chose to dumb-down its definition of college-readiness so it can make the political claim that its standards are “college ready.” Common Core standards are set to prepare students only for non-selective community colleges.
Evidence:
· No country expects to send 100% of its high school students to college, which is what CC promises, and the U.S. Department of Education wants to enforce through its new regulations. The best nations send about 70% of students into both two- and four-year colleges, which is precisely what the U.S. is already doing.
o Source: Education at A Glance 2011: OECD Indicators, chart C2.3, page 312. Note the misleading nature of chart C2.a on page 308. http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/61/33/48631070.pdf
· Common Core representatives, speaking in front of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education in March 2010, clearly acknowledged that Common Core’s concept of college readiness is “minimal and focuses on non-selective colleges.”
o Source: Minutes of the Regular Meeting of the Massachusetts Board of Elementary and Secondary Education, March 23, 2010. http://www.doe.mass.edu/boe/minutes/10/0323reg.doc
· In a survey of public four-year state colleges in the top 20 states by population, only three systems (University of Maryland, University of Virginia, and one campus of the University of Massachusetts (Lowell) require less than 3-years of high school math, including Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry. Common Core defines less than a full-year of Algebra 2 and Geometry courses as its “college readiness.”
o Source: R. James Milgram, Z. Wurman, “List of major four-year state colleges from larger states that require for admission at least 3 years of high school match, including Algebra 1, Algebra 2, and Geometry, or higher” Unpublished document, distributed at the joint MAA-AMS meeting, January 2010.
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Myth 5: Common Core standards do not dictate the curriculum. States are free to define their own curricula based on Common Core.
Truth: Common Core standards do not dictate the curriculum by themselves, but the national tests prepared by the federally-funded assessment consortia effectively force the creation of a national curriculum.
Evidence:
· Curriculum Framework released by PARCC.
o http://www.parcconline.org/parcc-content-frameworks
· Excerpts from the Smarter Balanced (SBAC) consortium Race to the Top Assessment grant proposal:
o Translate the standards into content/curricular frameworks, test maps, and item/performance event specifications to provide assessment specificity and to clarify the connections between instructional processes and assessment outcomes (p. 35)
o Provide “a clear definition of the specific grade-level content skills and knowledge that the assessment is intended to measure (p. 48)
o Develop cognitive models for the domains of English/Language Arts and mathematics that specify the content elements and relationships reflecting the sequence of learning that students would need to achieve college and career-readiness (p. 76)
§ Source: Smarter Balanced Assessment Consortium application to the U.S. Department of Education grant, June 2010. http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/rtta2010parcc.pdf
· Excerpts from the PARCC consortium Race to the Top Assessment grant proposal:
o Develop model curriculum frameworks that teachers can use to plan instruction and gain a deep understanding of the CCSS, and released items and tasks that teachers can use for ongoing formative assessment (p. 57)
o Unpack the standards to a finer grain size as necessary to determine which standards are best measured through the various components … To do this, the Partnership will engage lead members of the CCSS writing teams … and the content teams from each state, assessment experts and teachers from Partnership states (p. 174)
§ Source: Partnership for the Assessment for College and Careers (PARCC) consortium application to the U.S. Department of Education grant, June 2010. http://www2.ed.gov/programs/racetothetop-assessment/rtta2010smarterbalanced.pdf
· Assessment expert, Richard Innes, writes:
o It’s not possible to create good state assessments without considering the curriculum. Otherwise, you wind up with tests that don’t measure what is taught, tests which may not even measure material that should be in the curriculum.
§ Source: R. Innes, “How’s that? Create tests without looking at curriculum?” Bluegrass Institute, February 2011. http://bluegrasspolicy-blog.blogspot.com/2011/02/hows-that-create-tests-without-looking.html
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